He was made in Groningen -- I'm just trying to return to sender._________________Scire aliquid laus est, pudor est non discere velle
"It is laudable to know something, it is disgraceful to not want to learn"
~Seneca

I'm (predictably) late to this discussion, but OH MY GOD. I saw that ad before the Superbowl, and I couldn't believe it was for real.

Is it weird that I couldn't tell she was supposed to be speaking with a Chinese accent? Everyone around me thought she was, but to me, she sounded like she was speaking totally normally but reading broken English. Maybe I've just heard too many real Chinese accents. That girl's a horrible actress. I'd like to meet her, shake her, and ask her what she was thinking.

Is it weird that I couldn't tell she was supposed to be speaking with a Chinese accent? Everyone around me thought she was, but to me, she sounded like she was speaking totally normally but reading broken English. Maybe I've just heard too many real Chinese accents.

see, this is your problem - you have actual experience in the actual real world. she's supposed to be scary chinese job-stealing lady! she's supposed to scare middle-american republican voters! it's like a horror movie - it's all about the emotion, if you start insisting it conform to reality, the whole thing falls apart!

one might hope that people voted on reality rather than their reactions to mini-horror movies, but there you are._________________aka: neverscared!
a flux of vibrant matter

I'm (predictably) late to this discussion, but OH MY GOD. I saw that ad before the Superbowl, and I couldn't believe it was for real.

Is it weird that I couldn't tell she was supposed to be speaking with a Chinese accent? Everyone around me thought she was, but to me, she sounded like she was speaking totally normally but reading broken English. Maybe I've just heard too many real Chinese accents. That girl's a horrible actress. I'd like to meet her, shake her, and ask her what she was thinking.

This has been dissected many times by people more qualified by me (you should all be reading James Fallows if you don't already), but everything about that ad is Vietnam. The parts of China which have manufacturing centers do not look like that; films like Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now, do. Even the (obviously US-born) actress was almost certainly chosen because she looks more southeast Asian than Chinese. It's all about the dog whistles to the people who remember those wars and the communist menace in general.

I have a student worker from Guangdong and told her about the ad. She didn't like it mostly because it was attacking China for something that wasn't really a good thing -- those aren't exactly great jobs (though she also didn't think the actress was of Chinese ancestry). When I told her that the woman's picture was named yellowgirl.jpg, she was pretty flabbergasted._________________Scire aliquid laus est, pudor est non discere velle
"It is laudable to know something, it is disgraceful to not want to learn"
~Seneca

A few weeks ago, a video circulated online of Rick Santorum claiming that 1 in 20 deaths in the Netherlands are caused by involuntary euthanasia. According to Santorum, elderly Dutch wear bracelets that say "do not euthanize me" and "don't go to the hospital, they go to another country, because they're afraid because of budget purposes that they will not come out of that hospital if they go into it with sickness."

After all, like the origin of the universe or the existence of a supreme being, Dutch medical statistics are ultimately unknowable -- just another of the unresolvable mysteries that have confronted us since the dawn of mankind. Who are we? Why are we here? What are the laws in the Netherlands concerning doctor-assisted suicide? We all have our own beliefs.

Santorum knows in his heart that elderly Dutch people are routinely euthanized against their will by doctors. He believes this to be true, no matter what the elite media tries to tell him.

It's the same way I know that one in four Laotians are born with an extra finger and that the most common name in Chad is Chad. It's just what I believe.

This is, essentially, Death Panels Mk. II — not content to have mythologized our own medical reforms to terrify voters with obvious falsehoods, Santorum belongs to the epidemic conservative mythologizers and liars who try to keep us terrified of the success of universal healthcare in europe.

Some admit that universal healthcare is working in europe way better than our system is working for us, despite how readily we could afford the change.

The typical strategy is to rely on canards and falsehoods about how what works for europe doesn't work for us for various contrived reasons that fall apart under scrutiny: our country is too large! or it's not homogenous enough! there's too many minorities, or something! It just wouldn't work! — Santorum ups the ante by proclaiming blatantly ridiculous falsehoods about the medical systems of countries that frankly embarrass our own with their performance and efficiency, to try to prop up the narrative that our medical system keeps people safe where social medicine would abandon them, despite the opposite being disgustingly clear.

....is it wrong that my first response is "i want a 'don't euthanize me' bracelet"?

apparently little ricky was badly scared by a fact as a child, and now avoids them pathologically. (little mitty and little newty appear to have been with him a the time). really, i don't know how else to explain their absolute refusal to believe such things even exist, let alone determine what they actually are. and it's spreading to their staff - why else would anyone think "he's a strong pro-life person" would be a valid answer to "why is he lying about the dutch murdering their old people?"

i think we need to start drug-testing our political candidates. he's either on something, or he should be._________________aka: neverscared!
a flux of vibrant matter